Nella Larsen facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Nella Larsen
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Larsen in 1928
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| Born |
Nellie Walker
April 13, 1891 |
| Died | March 30, 1964 (aged 72) New York City, U.S.
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| Other names | Nellye Larson Nellie Larsen Nella Larsen Imes |
| Education | Fisk University Lincoln Hospital New York Public Library |
| Occupation |
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Notable work
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Quicksand (1928) Passing (1929) |
| Movement | Harlem Renaissance |
| Spouse(s) |
Elmer Imes
(m. 1919; div. 1933) |
| Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship |
Nella Larsen was an American writer born in 1891. She was also a nurse and a librarian. Nella Larsen wrote two important novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929). She also wrote some short stories. Even though she didn't write many books, people during her time thought she was a great writer.
Today, many people are interested in her books again. Her writings are studied a lot. She is now seen as a very important writer of the Harlem Renaissance. She is also a key figure in American modernism.
Contents
Nella Larsen's Early Life
Nella Larsen was born Nellie Walker on April 13, 1891. She grew up in a poor area of south Chicago called the Levee. Her mother, Pederline Marie Hansen, was from Denmark. She worked as a seamstress and house cleaner.
Nella's father was Peter Walker. He was likely a mixed-race immigrant from the Danish West Indies. He left Nella and her mother when Nella was very young. Nella later said he had died. Nella's mother married another Danish immigrant, Peter Larsen. Nellie took her stepfather's last name, becoming Nella Larsen.
Her family moved to a mostly white neighborhood. But they faced problems because Nella was of mixed race. When Nella was eight, they moved back to a different area.
The writer Darryl Pinckney noted that Nella was in a unique situation. She was part of a white immigrant family. This meant she didn't experience the blues music or the black church in the same way as others. She was not fully white like her mother. But she was also not black in the same way as writers like Langston Hughes.
From 1895 to 1898, Nella visited Denmark with her mother and half-sister. She had good memories from this time. She played Danish children's games, which she later wrote about. After returning to Chicago, she went to a large public school.
Her mother believed education was important for Nella. She helped Nella attend Fisk University. This is a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1907–08, Nella lived in an African-American community for the first time. But she still felt different from most students. They were mostly from the South and descended from former slaves. Nella was later asked to leave Fisk University.
Nella then went to Denmark on her own. She lived there for three years, from 1909 to 1912. She also attended the University of Copenhagen. After returning to the United States, she still found it hard to find a place where she felt she belonged.
Nella Larsen's Nursing Career
In 1914, Larsen started nursing school. She went to the Lincoln School for Nurses in New York City. This school was part of Lincoln Hospital. The hospital treated mostly white patients. The nursing home treated mostly black patients. The doctors were white men. The nurses and students were black women.
After finishing school in 1915, Larsen went to Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. She became the head nurse there. But she did not like the way things were run or the working conditions. So, she left after about a year.
She came back to New York in 1916. She worked as a nurse at Lincoln Hospital for two years. She then got a job with the city's Bureau of Public Health. She worked in the Bronx during the 1918 flu pandemic. She worked in mostly white areas with white co-workers. She continued to work as a city nurse afterward.
Marriage and Family Life
In 1919, Nella Larsen married Elmer Imes. He was a famous physicist. He was the second African American to get a PhD in physics. After her marriage, she sometimes used the name Nella Larsen Imes when she wrote. She published her first short stories a year later.
The couple moved to Harlem in the 1920s. Their life there showed differences in social class. Nella was part of Harlem's black professional class because of her marriage. Many of these people had some European background. She and her husband knew leaders like W. E. B. Du Bois and Walter Francis White.
However, Nella felt somewhat separate from the black middle class. This was because she came from a poorer background. She also did not have a college degree. Many in the black middle class valued college education and family connections.
Nella's mixed race background was not unusual in the black middle class. But many others, like Langston Hughes, had more distant European ancestors. These families had often been free for a long time. This helped them get an education in the North. In the 1920s, many African Americans in Harlem were celebrating their black heritage.
Elmer Imes's science career put him in a different social group than Nella. The couple started having problems in the late 1920s. They divorced in 1933.
Librarian and Writing Career
In 1921, Larsen volunteered at the New York Public Library (NYPL). She helped prepare for the first exhibit of "Negro art." Her supervisor, Ernestine Rose, encouraged her. Nella became the first black woman to graduate from the NYPL Library School. This helped black staff get jobs in libraries.
Larsen passed her exam in 1923. She worked at the Seward Park Branch first. This area was mostly Jewish. Her white supervisors supported her. They helped black staff join the library teams. Larsen then moved to the Harlem branch. She was interested in the exciting culture there.
In October 1925, Larsen took a break from her job. She started writing her first novel. In 1926, she became friends with important people in the Harlem Renaissance. She then stopped working as a librarian.
She became a writer in Harlem's mixed-race arts community. She became friends with Carl Van Vechten, a white photographer. In 1928, Larsen published Quicksand. This novel was largely based on her own life. It received good reviews, but did not make a lot of money.
In 1929, she published Passing. This was her second novel and also got good reviews. It was about two mixed-race African-American women who were childhood friends. They chose different paths for their racial identity and marriages. One woman identified as black and married a black doctor. The other lived as a white woman and married a white man, hiding her African background. The book explored what happened when they met again as adults.
In 1930, Larsen published a short story called "Sanctuary." Some people said it was too similar to "Mrs. Adis," a story by British writer Sheila Kaye-Smith. Critics thought the plot and some descriptions were almost the same.
However, scholar H. Pearce disagreed. He said "Sanctuary" was "longer, better written and more explicitly political." He felt it focused on race, while "Mrs Adis" focused on class. Pearce believed Larsen changed the story for a modern American black setting. Kaye-Smith herself said her story was based on a 17th-century tale. Larsen said her story was like "folk-lore" told to her by a patient.
No plagiarism charges were proven. Larsen received a Guggenheim Fellowship. This was worth about $2,500 then. She was the first African-American woman to get this award. She used it to travel to Europe for several years. She spent time in Mallorca and Paris. She worked on a new novel there. But she never published that book or any other works.
Nella Larsen's Later Life
Larsen came back to New York in 1937 after her divorce. She received enough money from the divorce to live comfortably. This lasted until her ex-husband died in 1941. Larsen stopped writing. After her ex-husband's death, she went back to nursing. She became an administrator. She stopped being part of literary groups. She lived in the Lower East Side and did not go to Harlem.
Many people she knew wondered if she had started living as a white person. This was like some characters in her books. But her biographer, George Hutchinson, showed that she stayed in New York. She continued to work as a nurse.
Some scholars have wondered why Larsen stopped writing. They saw it as giving up or lacking courage. But they may have forgotten how hard it was for a woman of color to find a steady job. Nursing was a good option for Larsen to support herself. It was also a way to learn about the world.
A notable African-American nurse, Adah Belle Thoms, saw potential in Larsen. Thoms helped Larsen improve her nursing skills. After Larsen graduated in 1915, Thoms arranged for her to work at Tuskegee University's hospital.
Larsen used her medical background in her novel Passing. She created the character of Brian, a doctor. Brian's character might be partly based on Larsen's husband, Elmer Imes.
Nella Larsen died in her Brooklyn apartment in 1964. She was 72 years old.
Nella Larsen's Legacy
In 2018, The New York Times published an obituary for her. This was many years after her death.
Nella Larsen was a well-known writer during the Harlem Renaissance. She is most famous for her two novels, Passing and Quicksand. These books received many good reviews. Many people thought Larsen was a rising star. But she later left Harlem, her fame, and writing behind.
Larsen is often compared to other writers. These include Claude McKay and Jean Toomer. They also wrote about cultural and racial issues.
Nella Larsen's works are seen as strong stories. They show the experiences of mixed-race people. They also show the struggles with identity that some people face.
Some people argued that Larsen's work did not fit the "New Negro" movement. This was because her main characters were confused about their race. However, others argue that her work was an honest picture of life for many people. This was especially true for women during the Harlem Renaissance.
Larsen’s novel Passing was made into a 2021 film. Rebecca Hall directed it.
See also
In Spanish: Nella Larsen para niños
